Transcript

ABC NEWS

SHOW: WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH PETER JENNINGS (6:30 pm ET)

MAY 19, 1999

HEADLINE: RIDDING THE INTERNET OF BOMBMAKING INFO

BYLINE: BILL BLAKEMORE, PETER JENNINGS

HIGHLIGHT: PUBLIC INTEREST GROUP ASKS FOR SUPPORT

BODY:

(on camera) Here in New York today, an unusual collection of people has tried in a very public way to get something off the Internet. Survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber attacks and the Unabomber's brother have joined a public interest group to ask every player on the Internet to stamp out information about bombmaking. Here's ABC's Bill Blakemore.

BILL BLAKEMORE, ABC News: (voice-over) It is Web sites like these that the group wants pulled from the Internet, not because they're illegal -- many are not -- but because they're so easy to find.

DENNIS SAFFRAN, Center for the Community Interest: In just a few minutes' research on the Web, we found information on how to construct car bombs, pipe bombs, plastic weaponry and other lethal incendiary devices.

BILL BLAKEMORE: (voice-over) David Kaczynski is the brother of the Unabomber.

DAVID KACZYNSKI: I find it ironic, in a culture where we pump so much violence into our culture, that we then tell the parents that the burden is entirely on them to protect their children.

BILL BLAKEMORE: (voice-over) The group is asking all Internet service providers to do much more -- to track down possible bombmaking sites, to scan for new ones automatically and to move to shut them down or at least block millions of Web users from seeing them.

(on camera) Some services, such as America Online, do have policies forbidding any kind of bombmaking information but say it's difficult to police, because thousands of new Web sites appear every day and they're constantly changing and moving.

(voice-over) The Internet firms we contacted said they are studying today's proposal. But the backers of this plan say it's a simple way to make sure that if a disturbed person types in the word "bombmaking," he'll be far less likely to find the information he wants. Bill Blakemore, ABC News, New York.